Long John Baldry's Bands Launched Two Mega-Successful Solo Careers — And A Storied Friendly Rivalry

Few British musicians had a career quite like Long John Baldry. The journeyman blues singer rubbed elbows with members of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as a rising talent, before scoring a U.K. No. 1 hit of his own with 1967's "Let the Heartaches Begin." This kicked off a long and varying solo career that found him working in both England and Canada, and even doing some voiceover work ('90s kids might remember him as the voice of the evil Dr. Robotnik in the cartoon based on the "Sonic the Hedgehog" video games).

Baldry's greatest contributions to rock music, however, may be the frontmen he helped gain greater exposure among the record-buying public. Before the '60s ended, he'd played in bands with both Rod Stewart and Elton John. By doing so, he raised the profiles of two future hitmakers whose own offstage antics together became the stuff of rock and roll legend.

Rod Stewart had just turned 19 when Long John Baldry recruited him to a band in 1964. A year later, Stewart and Baldry formed a short-lived group called Steampacket. Though they only recorded a handful of demos, those tracks became sought after by collectors after Stewart broke through with the Jeff Beck Group, Faces, and his own solo career, starting with that legendary B-side turned hit single "Maggie May." Stewart always remained grateful to Baldry for his influence. "John taught me so much — things that apply to my life and things that made me the human being I am today," he told Reader's Digest in 2004.

After Steampacket, Baldry hired members of the band Bluesology to back him in concert, which proved fateful for Bluesology keyboardist Reg Dwight. When Dwight started working as a solo artist, he borrowed Baldry and bandmate Elton Dean's first names to create a new identity for himself: Elton John. Baldry's friendship with Elton proved pivotal when he stopped the singer-songwriter from entering a marriage of convenience, which inspired the surprisingly dark hit song "Someone Saved My Life Tonight."

Rod Stewart and Elton John had more than just a shared musical history with Long John Baldry in common; the two singers have been needling each other in public since they became famous.

The pair's relationship started shakily after Stewart recorded a version of Elton's "Country Comfort" that Elton described in his memoir "Me" (per a report in Vulture) as "... sounds like he made it up as he went along." What ensued was a decades-long friendship full of highs (Elton gave Rod a Rembrandt painting for Christmas), lows (both men have hired teams to deface each others' promotional materials) and whoas (Baldry assigned them quirky nicknames they still call each other by — Elton is "Sharon," and Rod is "Phyllis").

Occasionally, their relationship hits a rough patch, as seemed to be the case when Stewart slammed John's farewell tour plans. But more recently, Rod has assured fans of his enduring affection for his longtime frenemy. "He's eternally the most generous person I've ever known," he told The Guardian in 2021. "We communicate through the press now, but we love each other. That's what counts."